Cold Email Outreach Workflow

Manual outreach at scale was slow and replies were easy to miss.

Sending personalised emails to multiple leads required repetitive copy-pasting and manual tracking. There was no centralised source of truth, and monitoring replies meant repeatedly checking the inbox.

Built two connected n8n workflows sharing one Google Sheet as the source of truth.

The sending workflow pulls rows, skips already-sent leads, formats a personalised message, sends via Gmail with a 60-second delay, and updates status. A separate reply-monitor workflow checks every five minutes, searches Gmail for replies, and sends a Telegram alert when one comes in.

Two workflows, one source of truth.

The system uses two separate n8n workflows. Both interact with the same Google Sheet so outreach status and reply monitoring stay connected.

What was built.

• Google Sheets as the source of truth for leads, personalisation data, and outreach status.
• A controlled sending workflow with a 60-second delay between emails.
• Automatic status tracking to prevent duplicate sends.
• A reply-monitoring workflow running every five minutes.
• Telegram notifications when replies are detected.

Key decisions and compromises.

• 60-second delay — slows bulk sending but provides controlled pacing.
• Gmail instead of dedicated SMTP — simpler and cheaper for the demonstration, while dedicated infrastructure would provide more control at higher volume.
• Manual sending trigger — keeps the final decision to launch a campaign under human control.
• Automated reply monitoring — monitoring runs independently so replies do not depend on someone constantly checking the inbox.

A working end-to-end outreach system from structured lead data to Telegram reply notifications.

Personalised sends use structured lead data, automatic tracking prevents duplicates, and reply notifications arrive in Telegram instead of requiring a manually watched inbox.

Reply notifications are delivered through Telegram, reducing the need to manually monitor the inbox.

The system is currently being used as a demonstration of automation capability.

• Google Sheets can work effectively as a lightweight database for small automation systems.
• Sending controls and rate limits need to be considered when automating email workflows.
• Separating sending from reply monitoring makes the system easier to control and reason about.
• Real-time notifications make automated workflows considerably more useful in practice.